


Green Man

by MissSunFlower94



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: F/M, Marianne loves Bog and his forest v much, Spring, molting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 20:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6673642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSunFlower94/pseuds/MissSunFlower94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble. In which Bog molts in a very particular way...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green Man

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this INCREDIBLE artwork: http://ananoviq.tumblr.com/image/143383145488

Marianne still got chill when she entered the Dark Forest, but it was getting easier.

It was getting easier because it was easier for her to think about what awaited her in the forest, _who_ waited for her. It was getting easier because thinking about that _who_ gave Marianne a warmth from her ears to her toes, and that drown out any chill. It was getting easier because the Bog King was more than eager to show off his kingdom to his love, and learning the forest’s ways made it more familiar with every journey.

It was getting easier because as they moved into the later weeks of Spring the forest began to resemble the fields in ways Marianne had never considered.

The Dark Forest was downright _green_. The mossy earth far more vibrant than it had been during the fateful night of their meeting. All the budding earth back then was now in full blossom. And _blossom_ was the word Marianne would use; flowers littered the forest floor, grew off the lichen on trees, created color in what had always been assumed to be so dreary. It fascinated her. 

This change also affected the King of the Dark Forest.

She had been with him a week prior, the third week of April and the forest truly taking on its verdant hue. She watched Bog as he twitched irritably on his throne, sitting on the arm and pleased with the easy proximity that had slowly become natural to the both of them. 

“I thought you only hated spring because looove,” she drawled out the word teasingly, bumping his coniferous shoulder plate with her arm.

He rolled his eyes and inclined his face to hers. His face was pinched, but it didn’t seem like her comment was what caused the grimace. “Nae, though it certainly didn’t make me fond of it at the time.”

“So, what? Pollen allergies? All the rain? Do you get moldy?” 

Now the grimace was all her doing. He shoved her back, so hard she nearly fell off his throne. “ _No_.”

She shifted, sitting so her feet rested on his leg, her knees drawn up.  “Do you not want to talk about it?”

He winced, and then his expression was softer. They were new to this, she reminded herself. Opening up was new and strange, and yes it was nice… but it was still new. 

“It’s nothin important, Tough Girl,” he finally said, not unkindly. “I just daen’t like Spring.”

She searched his face. He looked pale, she thought, and when he moved his scales seemed to creek more than normal. She wondered if her comment of allergies wasn’t far off the mark - if he got ill every Spring that was reason enough to dislike it. Was it just something in the air, something that grew in the spring that affected him? Was it bad? Is that why he didn’t tell her - so he didn’t worry her?

She shook her head at herself; she was only worrying more with her own theories. He said it was nothing important, she had to believe him.

“Alright,” she said at last, smiling at him. She slid off the arm of his throne and moved the conversation on.

* * *

She returned the following week, the forest even greener than before. Marianne wondered if it could just keep getting greener infinitely… it had already surpassed any shade she had expected for a place called the Dark Forest. Some of the buds she had seen before were in full bloom, and the whole earth seemed to smell of growing things.

Upon reaching Bog’s - newly constructed - castle, she slowed, remembering their earlier conversation. She wondered if she was being ridiculous, thinking that Spring made him deathly ill or something, but it was the one theory she kept falling back on. Maybe she’d be tough and ask him about it again, if only to set the record straight. That decided, she resumed her pace and dropped through the open skylight that served as her (un)official entrance to the goblin castle.

Bog was nowhere to be seen.

In his place a creature sat. She hesitated to call him a Goblin, but he certainly wasn’t a Fairy. He had Bog’s build, certainly, the height and spindly quality she knew well. But he wasn’t Bog. Marianne found herself wondering if he perhaps had relations that she had never heard of. 

He was, well, _green_. Green as the forest and fields, mossy and leafy and… yes, even flowery. Small blooms of pale blue budded along shoulders that were as wide and protruding as Bog’s but layered over each other in softer leafs. His chest was plated with moss and foliage that overlapped like feathers would, his arms and legs looked like the still-green bark of a new sapling. Even from a distance, she saw sported mossy buds spreading along high cheekbones and into fresh leafy hair and brows. His eyes were blue, and seemed to glow.

Seeing her, he moved - and he moved like Bog might when surprised, startling and bristling. But when he moved, he seemed to rustle, like an aspen tree. She saw that his hair was flowering too, the skin that wasn’t covered in growth looked pale green as well.

The creature stood. They stared at each other a long time. 

“Well,” he said at last. “Aren’t you goin to say something?”

Marianne blinked a few times. “I’m- I’m sorry. I’m looking for the Bog King. Do you know where he’s gone?”

There was a brief silence. “You’re funny,” he said, his voice flat. That voice was rough, rumbling and coarse and didn’t match the soft exterior… and she knew that voice, really. He added, “Now ye see why I hate Spring.”

It couldn’t be. 

Bog was as rough as his voice, sharp and prickly, all angles and edges. Bog was the deep, rich earth tones of ancient trees, thick bark and chitin. 

Marianne took a few hesitant steps toward him, which he mirrored. He had the same nose, sharp and pointy as ever, though moss ran up its base to join with the leafs that made his hair. Those cheekbones were the same, under growth that grew like scales, that covered some of the lines from his eyes and made him look… _younger_ almost. More alive.

“Marianne?” He said it quieter, almost gentle. A stranger wouldn’t know her name.

She met his eyes and briefly lost what she was going to say - along with the ability to speak and remember her name - at the closer look at their clear, deep blue. She had never seen anything so _beautiful_. 

She smacked his arm. Oddly enough it felt sturdier than normal, like it had regained substance. 

“Ow!” He flinched back. His expression of confusion, annoyance, and injury was so Bog that it brought her back to herself.

“You!” She smacked him again. “You call this! Nothing! Important!”

“What?” He asked. And really, he needed to stop sounding so much like Bog when he looked so much like… whatever the hell this was.

“Nothing important, you said! I just don’t like Spring, you said! You knew this was going to happen and you didn’t think I might like to know?”

He flinched away from her, his foliage rustling like a breeze had passed over it. “I- I didnae want to tell ye-”

That didn’t make things better. “And what, how were you planning on keeping it from me? Does it go away in a week?” Bog shook his head, looking like he wanted the earth to swallow him whole and Marianne’s brain caught up with her shock. Her voice lowered. “Why didn’t you want to tell me?”

Her gentle tone only seemed to incense him. He looked at her again, his eyes flashing. “Look at me, Marianne! Did ye think I wanted ye to see me like this? I’m hideous enough as it is without lookin like,” he gestured to himself with a wordless growl. Marianne opened her mouth and his voice was almost a snarl. “Don’t deny it, Tough Girl - I saw how ye reacted.”

She flinched a little, but wasn’t going to back down. “Bog, you idiot, I reacted that way because you surprised me, because I didn’t know to expect this.” She ran her fingers through her hair with a frustrated noise. “And yeah, maybe I still would have been surprised; it’s a lot to take in, but at least I would have understood what was happening. I _still_ don’t understand what’s happening,” she added pointedly.

Bog’s anger didn’t disappear as much as fizzle out of him, with appropriate noises of someone willing himself to not be angry. “It’s a- ah- process. Every Spring I- molt, I think is the best word for it. I shed my outer layer and-” the bitter snarl was back in his voice. “An’ come out lookin like a bloody-”

“Woah!” Marianne raised her hands, not liking to hear her lover talk about himself so negatively. The more her shock faded, the more she understood him; he already looked so different from his people, already felt othered because of it, and this was something else about him that was strange, different, unnatural. He, who hated his appearance enough, had his reasons for hating it increased a hundred fold once a year. 

He had silenced, and now watched her, a little more of his anger evaporating off of him. It didn’t suit his appearance, she thought, being booming and bitter - which probably angered him all the more.

She wanted to tell him that she didn’t find him hideous, though, but bit her tongue, knowing he would think she was pitying him. “How long does it last?”

He grumbled. “Long as the season. By midsummer it will have begun to harden and I’ll look more like… like how ye know me.” His voice had dropped to a murmur.

Marianne took in this information, looking him over. After a moment she stepped closer to him. He stiffened, standing straighter, but didn’t recoil. That was promising. He smelt different, she thought. Still earthy, still of trees and the forest that he ruled over, but fresher… wetter. Like the earth after a rainstorm. She liked it.

She reached toward him and here Bog did lean away, as if it was her sword she pointed at him. She withdrew only a second before meeting his eyes. “Can I…?”

Bog rustled a little again, but he nodded. “If ye wish.”

Marianne tried not to over-think it, just reached and placed her hand on his chest. Immediately it sunk into soft, thick foliage and Marianne almost squeaked. He was so soft - softer than she could have imagined, softer than any moss in field or forest, softer than any velvety flower bed. Underneath it, he still felt like him, the bark-like exoskeleton she knew, just alive and growing like the lichen on the trees around them.

She was reminded of her flights through the forest as Spring growth took it over. She thought of how much she loved the color and light it brought to the land. Bog was nothing if not a representation of his kingdom, almost a manifestation of the earth. Right now that earth, his forest, was coming alive with vibrancy, and so was he. It was absolutely incredible, and Marianne found herself less surprised and more enthralled the closer she inspected him.

Still, she kept her touch light, trailing over his collar, over the leafy shoulders that would harden to spiky pauldrons in a matter of months, She touched one of the flower buds and Bog jerked with a small noise she couldn’t decipher the meaning of.

“Marianne?” He asked again. There was concern and embarrassment and real vulnerability in his voice. She took her hand away and looked at him. He looked back down at her; his blue eyes were unreadable, his mouth pulled into a hard line, and… yes, she could see he was blushing. This was him, without armor, she realized. And he was letting her this close. The trust that showed made her catch her breath. 

Without thinking she brought a hand up to his face. The line of his cheekbone was as hard as ever but the springy moss that stretched above his ears and framed those incredible eyes made him look like something magic, something that belonged to the earth even more than he already had.

“You’re beautiful.” 

She hadn’t meant to voice that, and she wasn’t surprised when his expression took the quick turn from shock to confusion and doubt. 

“Marianne-”

She cut him off with two fingers to his lips - lips she had once considered the softest thing about her lover and now fit the rest of him perfectly. “I know you hate it, but do you ever look at this forest in the Spring?”

She took her fingers away but Bog didn’t say anything, just blinked at her, honestly baffled.

She smiled, letting her hands thread through the soft leaves. “It’s so green here. Green and lush and full of life in a way I never thought it could be. It looks like it’s thriving, new and fresh and different, but strong too, coming back after winter. And it’s beautiful, Bog - it’s always looked beautiful, in that different way that I’m still getting used to - but now, it’s never looked more beautiful to me.”

Bog was silent, his eyes traveling over her face, and Marianne could feel herself blushing. Speeches and declarations weren’t really her thing; she was more comfortable showing her feelings in actions rather than words. But there was something about Bog, about her feelings for him - still so new and so much that they sometimes surprised her in their strength - that had her needing to tell him, really tell him, just how amazing she found him. How much she loved him.

Bog, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem resorting to actions - because, having found whatever he was looking for in her expression, he gathered her in his arms and pressed his mouth to hers. 

And Marianne found the line of her body pressed flush against his, all that incredible softness against her. She almost whimpered at the sensation. Oh this, this she could get used to. 

She thread her fingers into his leafy scalp and Bog did whimper at that. It occurred to her hazily that he must be incredibly sensitive in this state, and her fingers languidly trailed down his neck towards his spine.

He broke the kiss before they reached their destination and she marked it off as an exploration for another night, simply locking her arms around his neck now and smiling breathlessly up at him. “You’re beautiful,” she told him again.

He flushed, his breath coming out in rough pants, his blue eyes truly glowing. He looked like a deity, something that belonged completely to the forest. “Yer incredible, Marianne,” he said, his voice almost a purr. _That_ suited him enormously, as did the crooked smile that came to his face.

“I still wish you would have told me.”

“Ah’m sorry,” he said, and she knew he meant it.

“You’re forgiven,” she said. “I’m sorry I freaked out.”

“Ye had the right,” he replied, then winced as she knocked her first lightly against the back of his head. “But yer forgiven as well.”

She beamed at him. “Good. Now, tell me more about this…”

Bog chuckled a little and, carrying her over to his throne where they could both sit in comfort, he did just that. 

 


End file.
